


Prom Night

by Rosae



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abandonment, Abandonment Issues, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Collab, Happy Ending, HighSchool!Stuck, Human!Stuck, Hurt/Comfort, I like the ending., It Gets Better, M/M, Minor Self Harm, Prom, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Were you really expecting anything else to come of me writing?, Whump, highschool, self hatred, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:52:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosae/pseuds/Rosae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Highschool, Eridan gets mocked for being desperate before he can ask Sollux to the prom and he loses his confidence to do so. He tries to be hopeful that someone will ask him out, but nobody does so he ends up going alone. At the prom he ends up breaking down and going to his empty home crying where the others find him and discover more about him home life then they'd care to know.</p><p>Collab with someone who disappeared before telling me their fanfic/a03 so I can't credit them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prom Night

Very few things about school excited Eridan. It wasn’t that he hated school or that he was bad at it. If anything, he was a straight A student and at the very least he had his friends there, but it was still quite dull. However, the announcement of the upcoming prom put a spring in his step and a rare smile on his face, because this prom he had a plan. It was announced just before lunch time as his class was let out, while he was headed to his usual lunch spot. Today was going to be a good day, today he was going to ask Sollux to the prom after having spent the last three nights working up his confidence over the matter. He knew that Sollux was bisexual, he know that he was at least close to his type, and he knew that the worst Sollux would do was turn him down. 

Okay, maybe he didn’t actually know that last part, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that. Or admit the fact that he had been kept up those last three nights by thoughts of exactly what Sollux might do or say in response. 

Still, he was going to do it, this stupid crush had been eating at his mind for close to seven years now. Eridan took one last deep breath before rounding the corner into the lunch room, where most of his friends had already gathered at their normal table. 

Since he had gotten here next to last, he was left with the choice of sitting next to Karkat or Equius, either he was dealing with sweat stains or burst eardrums. One look at Equius made his choice for him and he plopped himself down next to Karkat on the end. 

The move Eridan made immediately caused Karkat to turn his head in acknowledgement to his presence. ‘Hey,’ he mumbled, wiping his mouth off and giving a slight nod as he finished eating the rest of his food before he continued to try and talk to him. 

‘Shit, sorry,’ Karkat told him afterwards, sitting back a little on the bench. ‘Okay, okay, so fucking guess who asshole number one over here is taking to prom.’ It wasn’t a question so much, Karkat pointing his spoon to point at Equius. 

Eridan rose a quizzical brow at that, looking around for a moment before shrugging in reply, setting his bag down. ‘Leijon?’ He guessed halfheartedly, briefly glancing to Sollux, who was seated across from Karkat. 

‘Not even. The shitstain completely abandoned his friend for Captor’s ex, Aradia.’ Karkat, apparently, was getting pretty worked up over this, so Eridan decided to try and switch the subject before the topic was blown way out of proportion. 

‘Alright, so if she’s goin’ with Eq, then who is Sol goin’ with?’ He asked, trying to keep the question as casually as he could without sounding too suspicious and prying. 

The shorter male paused, narrowing his eyes at his friend for a moment. ‘Hell if I fucking know, the dickhead won’t even tell me, and I’m his friend. Ask him yourself.’

“Maybe I will.” Eridan replied on instinct before thinking for a second to reanalyse his statement. Once the thought had passed through his mind, he realised the implication of what had been said. Trying to keep his voice at a reasonably interested level, he asked. “Wait, does that mean he’s goin’ with someone?”

Unfortunately, a seven year crush takes it’s toll. Karkat who was a master both at romance and emotions in general (disregarding his own), and at Eridan looked at him suspiciously. “Are you thinking of asking him out?” The other asked in a quieter tone. 

Once again, unfortunately, a certain blind girl with scary good hearing picked up on the question and fucking ran with it. “Eridan’s going to ask out Mr. Appleberry? Have you finally dropped all standards just to get someone to go out with you?” And she was not quiet in the least. Terezi was loud and clearly heard, and Eridan’s face flushed as he immediately attempted to deny it. 

Terezi’s words certainly didn’t miss Sollux by any means, who shot a look first at her, then Eridan. There was a clear sense of guilt that washed over his expression, and he sat back a bit before hunching forward and covering his mouth with his hand. 

In which Eridan suddenly got both really scared and really hopeful, because there could be only two reasons as to why he would react without yelling or getting practically pissy over it. Either Sollux was considering the options on saying yes, or he felt really guilty over something he did very recently that pertained to the situation.

He suddenly felt very sick, very fast. He desperately hoped that it wasn’t the latter, and was looking for some kind of sign from the other male that it wasn’t. Sollux gave him no otherworldly indication. Which, admittedly, only tore Eridan up a little more. 

Before any sort of verbal reply could be brought out of Sollux, Vriska decided that now was a great time to speak up and add onto her girlfriend’s statements. Her tone was it’s usual snide self as she spoke, giving that shit eating grin of hers as she did so. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Eridan’s asked out half the school already if he’s desperate enough to be going after Sollux.”

Seemingly diverted from the topic of Eridan asking Sollux out, the rest of the table saved Sollux, Equius and Gamzee joined in with the jokes. It had been a long running gag in their group that Eridan would ask out anything that moved, and as far as any of them were concerned, it was all in good fun. Even though Eridan had only asked out four people in his life. 

“Only half the school? Did the other half just turn him down before he could ask?”

“No, uh, they probably just called out sick because, uh, they wanted to avoid him asking.”

“I hope they locked their doors, he might just start going to their houses like a stalker and calling it romantic.”

Such jokes continued well into their lunch break, until the topic was finally switched to something else, Eridan never quite found out what it was because he was a bit busy forcing himself not to cry. This was not how he wanted this to go. 

Furthermore, the fact that Sollux gave him no leading indication towards any answers left him stranded in his own thoughts. Most of his friends left him alone after that, for his own sake if not Sollux’s, who seemed to be touchy on the subject. 

The rest of the day blew past him, leading Eridan up to the time in which by the time he was getting ready to head to his car, he was nearly in tears. Still, he glanced at Karkat who happened to be there that day, and asked him the same question he asked him every other day or so. “Mind if I come over today?” To which he got the same reply he’d been getting for ages.

“Fuck no, public spaces are one thing, but there’s no way in hell I’ll be stuck alone with you.”

That was really it for him, he managed to make it to his car before everything that had built on him up until this point came crashing over him, leaving him halfway feeble and nearly sobbing in the drivers seat of the vehicle. 

It took him nearly half an hour to get over himself and drive back to his home, parking in an empty garage. Again. With of sigh that had held heavy remorse, he walked into the large home, locking the doors behind him. 

Shortly after setting his things down he sunk to the ground, leaned up against the wall and pressing his hands to his eyes from under his glasses. 

‘Fuck it,’ he muttered under his breath. “Fuck all of it, fuck all of them, fuck this stupid prom, fuck me for thinkin’ it was a good idea to even try that. Why on earth would Sollux want to go the prom with me? Now I’ve fucked up whatever small amount of friendship we might’ve had and with nothin’ to show for it.”

Eridan let his hands fall down to his sides and just went limp, just for a minute, just for a minute of not caring about this huge fucking mess that was his life. But eventually he could no longer just lay there, no matter the temptation. So with a sigh of defeat, too hollow to care anymore, Eridan moved himself up off the floor and into the kitchen. 

In said kitchen, there were very few things. Despite the rest of the house being nicely decked out, the kitchen was quite bare of almost anything, partly due to Eridan being the only one to ever use it and partly because Dualscar had left the stocking of it up to his youngest son. 

Stocking that would require Eridan to be able to do things like go to stores and interact with people outside of his friend-circle. Neither of which was easy for him, or something he enjoyed doing.

As a result the kitchen ended up quite bare, there was a coffee maker and three sets of silverware, thee bowls, three cups and three plates. There was some food, enough for him to eat today and maybe tomorrow. But he would still need to make a trip to the store at some point. 

Or just buy school lunches and skip dinner or breakfast once or twice, if he wasn’t able to muster up the energy of going to the store. That works to. 

The only other thing nearby, was a small dining table, with three chairs. Two of the chairs had photos on them, one of his father Admiral Dualscar Ampora, who had been gone for six years now on his current mission, and one of his older brother Cronus, who had been shipped off to boarding school since he couldn’t be trusted alone. Both had one of the sets of dining utensil in front of them. Just in case one of them happened to come home and need them.

Eridan grabbed the clean plate and some sort of tupperware full of something, he honestly wasn’t sure what, which he promptly stuck in the microwave to heat up. Once he had acquired food, the 17 year old sat down in his usual seat at the dining table. 

Despite having made food, Eridan didn’t really feel like eating, so instead he just poked at his food for a bit before speaking to the pictures. 

“I tried to ask Sollux out to prom today, it was a stupid thought, I know.”  
“It didn’t go very well.”  
“Everyone laughed at me. They called me desperate. It’s probably because I am.”

He paused for a few seconds, as if he were listening to someone before replying.  
“Yeah, you’re right dad. I should just wait for someone to ask me.”  
“Heh, I doubt Sol would, but maybe someone will. Better than gettin’ turned down a thousand times.”  
“I love you too, dad. I’ve gotta to go get homework done. See you in the mornin’, Cro.”

And with that, Eridan left to his room, feeling just a little better about the whole ordeal. Now his mind was made up, he would just wait for someone to ask him. Who knows, it might even be Sol. 

Yeah right, like that would ever happen. Still, he was bound to get asked by someone, he didn’t look that bad and he was sure there would be at least one person who wanted to ask him to the dance, right?

As the weeks to the prom wore on, Eridan proved himself quite wrong. Not one person asked him, and though he imagined how his father and brother would reassure him where they there, it became harder and harder to fake.

Finally, it was the night of the prom and no one had asked Eridan to go with them, but since he really didn’t want to spend the night alone thinking of all the fun his friends would be having, he choose to go anyways. He thought it would be fun, that he could dance with his friends for the hell of it and drink crappy punch. 

As he stepped into the gymnasium, already feeling self-conscious after the person at the door had given him a look of pity, he spotted his friends quickly.   
.   
Eridan walked up to them calmly, noticing that not all of them were present, and a few of them were holding hands with another person. His stomach twisted, but he tried his best to keep his chin up in light of things. 

‘Hey Ampora. I see you lack a partner. You never did ask out Captor, did you?’ Karkat was speaking to him from behind him, having no partner of his own. ‘Shitscrubbing idiot, now look, he’s out on the fucking dancefloor with Feferi, who thinks that he’s dating material when he clearly doesn’t like her like that.’

He followed where Karkat was pointing, wincing visibly when he finally saw Sollux and Feferi, the two of them over by the stage, talking together as Feferi was trying way too hard. 

‘Which, equally I find hilarious because he seemed to entirely abandon the single thought of going with you, and clearly wasn’t using his fucking head here, because really? Feferi? Fuck, if I was him, I’d at least have the goddamn decency to take pity on a lonesome shitwad like you and ditch a girl like her.’ 

It wasn’t necessarily an insult, but it wasn’t a compliment, either, seeing as the only light he was put in was a desperate, pitiful one. It bothered him far more than he would ever care to admit. 

‘Shut the fuck up, Kar, holy hell. You sound like his mother.’ Eridan could tell that he was about to pick right up on that and give a retort, but Eridan stopped him before he could. 

‘Where are the others?’ 

‘Dancefloor, probably. Most of the fucking douchebags have dates, though. Actually, just about every single one of them but you and me. Partially my choice, so don’t you blow a fucking mating horn in my ear. I’m not all over the idea of straight on accompaniment right now.’

Eridan scowled, but he nodded regardless. 

‘Back on subject,’ Karkat continued, pointing a finger at the other as he narrowed his eyes. ‘Seeing as you have no date, I suppose I’ll drop you off at fucking day care over there with the other date-less asseaters,’ he hissed, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Gamzee, Tavros, and Nepeta. 

He couldn’t help a soft groan as he was pulled over to the group, crossing his arms over his chest and looking between them. Immediately Nepeta gasped, putting her hand to her mouth and looking out on the dancefloor before back to Eridan.

‘I thought you were going to ask Sollux to prom!’ She sounded almost exasperated, if not a bit upset. 

‘He’s too much of a desperate shitstain that he decided to hang out of his ass rather than actually do something about it, seemingly. Like he always does, I don’t see your surprise here, this is typical Eridan at an all time low. Again.’

A weak glare was all he could muster up at this point, looking to the door for a moment, thoughtfully. This prom was not going the way he planned for it to at all, and this was his last chance to try and get to Sollux even just a little. The fact that his opportunities were deteriorating in front of him faster than he even thought of them really slimmed things down to one broad and equally final option. 

That there was none. There was no hope, there was nothing he could do to pull himself out or pull Sollux in. 

It wasn’t a very pleasant thought. Seeing as he had nothing to lose at this point, Eridan turned to Nepeta, who he happened to know was an excellent dancer. Even though he might not have feelings for her, a dance would still be fun. 

He put on his best smile that he could manage at the time and turned to the cat obsessed girl. Doing his best to seem charming, Eridan held out his hand and with a note of hope in his voice he asked her “May I have this dance? Just as a friend thing?”

But hope had done very little for him as of late. 

“Oh no, I am not getting getting pawed into that one. I’m not interested in you Eridan. Understand?”

And in that moment Eridan had a range of emotions. He was first and foremost just done with this shit. No, he was not fucking try to hit on everyone he talked to, maybe he just liked to actually talk to people. Not only that, but he was frustrated that no matter what he tried, nothing could just work out for him, it really wasn’t that hard for just one thing to go right. But he was also sad, lost, and feeling slightly betrayed. There was really only so much he could handle at once, and this exceeded his limit. 

Mumbling something about needing to use the restroom, Eridan fought tears as he hurried himself out of the gym. Clearly, driving was not an option right now, so he took shelter in one of the few places he knew he could, the art classroom. It was almost always unlocked for after school work during these sorts of events. 

He managed to make it inside and to one of the corners under a desk before crumbling in on himself. All of it was too hard, he couldn’t take the overload of emotions and so he didn’t. Instead he just sobbed, repeating not so nice things about himself as he did so. The same things that would hang at the edge of his mind, the same things he’d try to pretend he didn’t believe. Things he knew were true.

“Everyone hates me.”  
“I can’t even talk to someone without them thinkin’ I’m hittin’ on them.”  
“Dad left because of me.”  
“It’s my fault Cronus had to go to boardin’ school. I should have stopped him from leavin’.”  
“I fucked up all of this.”  
“No wonder Sollux isn’t interested in me, I’m a mess, and ugly and so fuckin’ broken.”  
“Why take the broken on when you can have someone so much better?”  
“Not that I blame him, who in their right mind would pick me over Fef?”  
“I’m always goin’ to fuckin’ be alone.”  
“No matter what I do, I’m still trapped in that fuckin’ house.”  
“Still alone in that stupid house, in the same fuckin’ rooms.”  
“I can’t get away.”  
“They won’t let me.”  
“I’ve tried, and tried and they won’t let me leave.”  
“Everyone would probably be better off if I was dead.”  
“Even me.”

These thoughts swirled around again and again in his head, tormenting him as he sobbed around his mumbled words. He was glad that at least he was where no one needed to hear his horrible choked up voice or see the ugly tears running down his face. Or so, he thought.  
***  
Sollux had noticed Eridan leave the gymnasium before Feferi did. He was curious as to where he was going, but at the same time he didn’t want to leave Feferi alone. Of course, though, curiosity eventually got the better of him. 

‘I’m going to go stop by the restroom, why don’t you go get some food?’ He told her, smiling a little. She nodded in reply, going towards the table that held the food and drinks. In the meantime, Sollux moved out the door quickly and towards where he saw Eridan disappear off to. 

He checked the bathrooms first, before hearing distant talking coming from one of the classrooms, the voice sounding suspiciously close to that of Eridan’s. 

He moved towards it, leaning in to listen on to what the voice was saying, and immediately confirmed that it was, in fact Eridan. 

The blonde frowned at Eridan’s words, trying to think quickly of a solution, if any. He eventually decided against the idea of going inside of the classroom, just in case he was really upset and wanted to be alone for a reason. 

It finally clicked to him that the other male was crying, and he gave up right then. He needed help on what to do.

Sollux went back to the gymnasium, guilt sitting heavily in the pit of his stomach as he looked for the rest of his friends. He eventually spotted Karkat, along with Gamzee, Nepeta, and Equius. He walked up to them, greeted immediately by all four of them. 

‘Eridan’s crying,’ he said immediately, looking especially at Karkat, whom he’d seen talking to Eridan right before he ran off. Karkat merely shrugged, but Gamzee seemed to care a bit more. 

‘Why was he crying?’ Karkat finally asked, sighing hard and looking to his friend through narrowed eyes. Sollux could only make a face in reply, a clear ‘I don’t know, I didn’t go in, but I’m seriously worried. What the hell happened over here with him?’.

‘I don’t know! I sat him over here with the other fuckers without da- wait, so, you just… left him there? Fucking idiot!’ He groaned, hitting the taller male. 

‘Well, what the fuck else was I supposed to do?’ Sollux growled, punching him back. 

‘Um? You could have, oh I don’t know, talked to him?”

“And say what? He was spewing all sorts of crazy shit that didn’t make much sense and I don’t know how to handle that!”

“That doesn’t mean you leave him there, fuck we don’t have time for this, where was he?”

“Over in the art room, what’s the big deal. He’ll calm himself down and then we can talk to him.”

At that moment, if Karkat’s hand wasn’t alright aching from the first hit, he would have hit Sollux again. It was times like this he had to remind himself that Sollux had no social skills whatsoever. He took in a deep breath that really did nothing for him before answering him.

“Sollux dickmunching Captor, if someone is upset to the point they are sobbing in a classroom then you do not leave them alone. Giving them space is fine, leaving them unmonitored is not. What if he goes and does something stupid and gets himself hurt? Like he did that time Vriska and Nepeta kept making fun of his cape.”

That was not a pleasant memory for Sollux to recall, long story short Eridan had ended up in the hospital. 

“Okay, leaving him alone probably wasn’t the best of ideas. Should we go back?”

“Yes, you fucker we should go find him. Isn’t that what I just said. Come on.”

Karkat stormed out of the room heading towards the art room with Gamzee, Sollux and Tavros in tow. Unlike the rest of them, Nepeta noticed the looks from several of the other members who had noticed their shouting and angry exit, and decided to stay behind to explain things as best she could.

It wasn’t far to the art room, and Karkat had managed to calm himself a bit on the way there, so when he entered the room he was expecting to find Eridan, have a talk with him and get all this bullshit sorted out. 

But let’s face it, when does anything ever go the way you plan for it go. As it turns out, in the time they were arguing Eridan left the room and was now who knows where. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. This is not good.”  
The calm that had sort of been there before was now completely gone from Karkat and had been replaced with a pure undying rage for whatever godly being had thought this would be funny. He slammed the classroom’s door against the wall as he exited the room and turned to the other three, addressing them all with equal anger.

“Well thanks to you, he’s fucking gone and we’ve got no fucking clue where he went. For all we know he could be halfway from here to fucking Antarctica.”

Sollux was at a loss for what to say now, and Gamzee was too high to be of any use at all, which left it up to Tavros to try and be the voice of reason. 

“Maybe, he, uh, went home? I mean, uh, it’s not like he would want to stay.”

“Thanks, Tavros, that’s so fucking useful. How could I not think of that? So now let’s just all go drive over to his house, knock on his door and try to explain to his dad how we managed to fuck him up so badly; Without actually knowing if he’s there.”

Right about now was when Sollux found his voice and spoke up.

“Do any of us even know where he lives?”

It seemed to be enough to distract Karkat from his rage and brought up an interesting question, where the fuck did Eridan live? The only person they knew who had ever been over to his house was Feferi. 

“No fucking clue. Now let’s go get another one of you fuckheads involved in this shit because none of us even know where his house is.”

To say the least, it was nice when they returned to the room to discover that all of their friend circle had been rounded up and had the situation explained to them, making explaining that Eridan was gone that much easier. 

What wasn’t nice was discovering that Feferi hadn’t been to Eridan’s house since they were little kids, and that she also had very little idea of where it was. Something that lead to Karkat getting riled up again, just at the whole group.

“Let me get something straight, we’ve all been his friends for years now, and not a single one of you has any idea where he lives? How the fuck is that even possible?”

“Calm down KK, I check the school database and found his address. We can head over there now.”

Karkat glared at Sollux, but relented. “Alright, come on. Let’s hurry before he does something stupid.”

Now the thing is about this circle of friends, is it has three major groups, those who will probably grow up and run a crime ring, those who are there to stop them from running the crime ring right now, and some cute ones who somehow got pulled along for the ride. If one member of the group is going somewhere, the rest are following them. 

Since Karkat, Sollux and Gamzee all happened to fit into those groups, it meant they had to deal with somehow getting fifteen of them over to Eridan’s house. 

In the end they took the two largest cars, ten of them piling in Dave’s van which was normally used for hauling his Bro’s turntables around, and the other five getting in Rose’s car. 

It took them nearly an hour to find their way to Eridan’s house, despite it actually being fairly close by. Between communicating directions over the phone and lots of yelling on Karkat’s part, they did finally manage to get everyone there. The kid’s house was huge, a “who could possible use this much space?” huge. Thanks to his car parked outside, they knew he was in there. 

Which left them with only one problem, who was going to knock on the door? Though they might not know much about Eridan’s family, they knew that his father had been a military admiral, and none of them wanted to be the one who greeted him, even Gamzee was sober enough to be wary. They were sure that his father was probably already in some sort of rage over the whole thing.

Still, someone had to do it, and after a few minute’s debate, Karkat stepped up to handle it. Bracing himself, he raised his hand and rung the doorbell. 

Even from outside the gong could be heard, but nobody came to answer the door. A second and third try also yielded no results. Finally Karkat had enough and tried banging his fist on the door, only to discover that it had been left slightly open by someone clearly too rushed to check. 

The red-head glanced back at the others with a raised eyebrow and after being meet with nothing but shrugs, he made his own call. “Alright, we’re going in.”

Inside the house wasn’t much better than outside, most things were dusty and the whole area seemed hardly used, the only sign of life was hastily tossed aside shoes by the side of the door. From there the group clumped together, with Nepeta being the first to speak up about the area.

“I know his family is purrbably just out, but is anyone else furing like this house is something out of a horfur movie?”

“Nope, this house is hella haunted. And apparently nobody in his family believes in dusting.”

Slowly the group moved through the living area and towards the kitchen. 

Karkat wandered off towards to the cupboards, pulling them open one by one until he realised that there was maybe one can of food left in one of them- the rest were bare. Which scared him, because Eridan was supposed to live here, not survive here.

‘There’s nothing to eat here, what the fuck, where’s Eridan?’ Karkat hissed in question, slamming one of the cupboards shut before facing the group. 

‘Look around, dammit, don’t just stare at me blankly. This isn’t just my fault, here.’ Slowly the group dispersed, moving around the house in search for Eridan.

Hardly a minute had passed before Vriska called Karkat over, having just made their way into what they thought was supposed to be the dining room. 

“Karkat, I think you may want to see this.” 

When he moved into the room, Karkat found something much scarier than the bare cupboards. Because in that dining room was the same little table with the same little chairs, and the same pictures of his absent family members. Vriska seemed unnerved by the whole scene, and honestly Karkat was with her. 

“Right, okay, I’m starting to think Eridan may having not been telling us the whole truth about his home life.”

“Do you think he murdered his whole family?” Asked Vriska, half joking, half entirely serious. But rather than an amused response, all she got was a glare from Karkat and a sharply worded reply.

“No, I think he might be in a seriously neglectful situation and that making jokes about this really isn’t funny.”

From there most of the lower house was searched without any luck, so while half of them stayed downstairs in case he was tucked away down there, the other half went up the stairs to the second floor. 

A few complaints rose up, mostly from Tavros and Nepeta, them continuingly telling Karkat and Sollux how creeped out they were. Gamzee even made his own comments on how it was too quiet and too big and he wanted to go back, but Karkat hushed them all, stopping once at the top step. 

He was slowly putting two and two together; from all the times that Eridan had ever asked if he could come over to his house to ‘hang out’. It wasn’t because he was trying to get with him, but rather because he was lonely and maybe even afraid. Given the state of the house, it wasn’t hard to see why Eridan wouldn’t want to be coming back here every night.

Before he made his way up the final step, Karkat turned around to address the others. “Once we’re up here, we’re splitting up in pairs, since there’s way more hallways then we could cover as a group. Gamzee will be coming with me to check the first hallway to our left. Nepeta and Vriska, you two are going right. Sollux and Dave, there’s a hallway up ahead on your left, check there. Tezeri and Jade, go to the end of the second right hallway and work your way back from there. Okay?”

He didn’t even stick around for the grumbling at partner choices before grabbing Gamzee and heading down the first hallway. As he made his way down the seeming endless hallway, he glanced around for any light or sound from any of the rooms, not seeing any results until Gamzee planted his feet to stop him. Turning around to yell at the clown, Karkat was stopped in his tracks as Gamzee shooshed him before pointing at a door, seemingly like any other. In a quiet voice, he told the other. “There’s motherfucking sad feelings radiating off this one.” 

If Karkat hadn’t already seen Gamzee and his near psychic ability to detect things other people couldn't, he would have just told the other to be quiet and kept moving on, but Gamzee had never been wrong about these sorts of things before.

With a sigh, Karkat pushed open the door, not ready for what he saw. 

The room was unlit, but the walls were covered in photos, photos of Eridan’s family and at least on picture of just about everyone in his friend group, some photos of animals who Karkat assumed to be pets and some photos of different scenes of all sorts. Only one thing was missing in all this photos that Karkat could see, and that was Eridan himself. 

Speaking of whom, Karkat heard a muffled sound coming from across the room. With gentle steps he made his way across the room towards it, just beyond a large bed that was lacking blankets. It was there he found Eridan, who looked like a startled rabbit. To Karkat’s dismay there was blood on Eridan’s face from a source he couldn’t identify and tear streaks were everywhere. His eyes were wide and Karkat became hyper aware that one wrong move here could seriously hurt Eridan. All this work to find him, and he had no idea what to say. 

How do you comfort someone who you were responsible for hurting, Karkat sure as fuck didn’t know. Luckily for him, he had brought along someone who did and who happened to have just sobered up enough to react to their situation. 

Before Karkat could speak or try to move towards Eridan, Gamzee did. The clown was across the room faster than he should have been able to go, and he had Eridan scooped up in his huge lanky arms. Both of the other member’s of the room were equally shocked, but Gamzee continued without any heed for either of them.

The blankets that had been covering Eridan and subsequently fallen off when he was picked up were pulled off the ground and gently wrapped around him by the clown. From there, Gamzee just sort of allowed himself to fall to the ground slowly, keeping Eridan in his lap and arms. 

Keeping his movements slow and soft, the facepaint clad boy brought up his sleeve to wipe away the blood, revealing fingernail lines that were shallow but long. Still not a word had been spoken. Until about ten seconds later in which Gamzee said what had to be his most coherent and sensible statement he had made that year. 

“Hey there motherfucker, I don’t know quite what’s goin’ on with you, but I do know you’ve got one of them lonely aurora around you and I’ve got a pretty strong feeling we may’ve been parta causing it. But motherfucker, I promise ya that I’m not going anywhere, and I’ve got a damn good feeling that the other aren’t goin’ away either. We’ve all been up not nice to you for awhile now, and I promise it’ll be done with now, okay?”

It was rambly and hard to understand, but somehow it was just what Eridan needed to hear at the moment. Tears that he had formerly been fighting down fell freely and the blanket snuggled teen was pulled up against Gamzee’s chest. 

Karkat looked at the two of them for a moment, with Gamzee’s relaxed grin aimed down at his friend and made the choice to allow the two of them a little time. Besides, someone needed to alert the others that he had been found. That and those fingernail scratches looked like they were going to need cleaning. 

He left the door creaked open, so he could find again before rushing off down the hallway to where they had formally split up. It wasn’t hard to gather the others from there, once he had got them all in one place he explained what had happen.

“Right, so we found Eridan in his room, or at least that’s what I think it is. Gamzee somehow managed to calm the fucker down and so they’ve ended up in a cuddle pile. He’s with him now, so if any of you fuckers want to leave now, overwhelming him would be a pretty shitty idea. Though we are still having a talk when I manage to figure out what started this fucking mess. Clearly there’s some fucked up shit going on in Eridan’s life right now and odds are we’re going to need to be a hell of a lot more careful then we have been. Pass it on to the others downstairs, I’m going to go make sure Gamzee didn’t fuck something up while I was gone.”

And with that taken care of, Karkat turned back towards the room. About twelve steps down the hallway, he noticed a second set of footsteps behind his. He spun around and found exactly who he thought would be there behind him. 

For once in his life Sollux looked nervous, his head was slightly ducked and his hands were fiddling around in his pockets. Karkat considered him for a second, he knew for a fact that Sollux was crushing on Eridan and Eridan was crushing on him back, but he also knew that the last thing Eridan needed right now was relationship drama. Still, the look in Sollux’s eyes was pitiful enough that he couldn’t say no. 

A deep sigh escaped him as he gestured for the other to follow him. 

Sollux didn’t wait to be told a second time to do so, following after his friend as he looked at each door, hoping Karkat knew which one had Eridan and Gamzee.

Karkat led him through the already cracked door, looking between the two before giving a loud exhale. Upon Sollux entering the room, he moved to the ground with Gamzee and Eridan, just watching the two of them as he sat off to the side a little ways. 

Upon Karkat’s order, the two of them left roughly half an hour later, leaving Eridan and Sollux alone in his room. He didn’t want to make things any worse between the two of them, so he did the only thing he knew to do at the given moment.

He stood up and offered his hand out to Eridan, who, on wobbly legs, got to his feet as well.

A rare blush made it’s way onto Sollux’s face and it took a moment for him to work up his courage to speak. 

“I didn’t get to ask you this earlier, but may I have this dance?”

For the first time that night, Eridan felt tears well up that weren’t out of sadness. A smile formed on his face and he took Sollux’s other hand and the two of them began to dance. It was slow and awkward, in a room full of memories with so many problems left unsolved and a heart that might never fully heal, but for them, for now, it was perfect.


End file.
